| 2006 British Composer Awards winners announced |
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The 2006 British Composer Awards were announced on Friday 24th November in a ceremony hosted by the British Academy of Composers & Songwriters at London’s Hayward Gallery. Now in its fourth year, the Awards are sponsored annually by the Performing Right Society (PRS), and run in association with BBC Radio 3. Radio 3 presenters Sara Mohr-Pietsch and Petroc Trelawny revealed this year’s winning works, and the composer Steve Martland presented the Awards.  The British Composer Awards is the only Awards programme designed to celebrate the work of contemporary classical composers in the UK. This year over 250 nominations were received for works premiered in the UK between 1st April 2005 and 31st March 2006, and each category (excluding the BBC Radio 3 Listeners Award) was judged by an independent panel comprising composers, performers and producers of musical events. Sarah Rodgers, Chair of the Awards, said: “There could not be a more exciting time for contemporary composition – composers are producing truly enthralling work with a freedom and confidence not seen for many a decade.” Some of the UK’s most distinguished contemporary composers appear amongst the winners this year, including Simon Holt, winner of the Orchestral category for witness to a snow miracle; Hugh Wood, who wins this year’s Vocal category for his song cycle set to texts by Robert Graves; and Judith Bingham, a double winner at the 2004 British Composer Awards, short listed in three categories this year and the winner of the Choral category for My Heart Strangely Warm’d. One of the Awards’ objectives is to promote the commissioning and performance of contemporary music by amateurs, and each year it receives nominations from members of Making Music, or any other amateur group, for the Making Music Award. The winner was Chris Long for his work for choir and orchestra, O Lord, Remember, performed by the City of Birmingham Choir as part of Making Music’s ‘Adopt-a-Composer’ scheme. Jonathan Dove’s On Spital Fields, a Community Cantata written for over 200 amateur musicians, won this year’s award for a Community or Education Project, and he will receive £5,000 funding from the PRS Foundation for New Music (PRSF) towards a further project in 2007. The BBC Radio 3 Listeners Award gives the public its chance to vote, and this year Radio 3 listeners chose Jonny Greenwood’s Popcorn Superhet Receiver from a list of nine orchestral works commissioned by the BBC over the past year. Roger Wright, Controller of Radio 3, said: "I am delighted for Jonny Greenwood that his new classical work has been appreciated in this way by our listeners - a great example of BBC Radio 3's unique cultural patronage." In addition to his role as Radiohead’s lead guitarist, Jonny Greenwood is the BBC Concert Orchestra’s Composer in Association, and in a new development this year, he will receive a £10,000 orchestral commission funded by the PRS Foundation. Further winners this year include Patrick Nunn in the Instrumental Solo and Duo category, the composer and saxophonist Andy Scott for his double saxophone concerto Dark Rain, the composer-conductor Gregory Rose in the Liturgical category, Gary Carpenter in the Chamber category, and Robert Jarvis, for the second year running, in the New Media category. www.britishacademy.com December 2006 |
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